


Understanding

by Darkestwolfx



Series: irrelief2020 [2]
Category: Thunderbirds
Genre: Bonding, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Gen, mutual understanding, sort of an episode tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-13
Updated: 2020-04-13
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:26:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23635309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Darkestwolfx/pseuds/Darkestwolfx
Summary: Now they had to welcome the Thing into their family, it seemed, as though it wasn't enough that It had already nearly killed John, apparently. Scott has a different view to his brothers on EOS, and a long way to go. Another prompt for irrelief2020.
Series: irrelief2020 [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1671664
Comments: 4
Kudos: 19





	Understanding

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TsarinaTorment](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TsarinaTorment/gifts).



> Another fill for a prompt by tsarinatorment for irrelief2020, this time for: EOS and Scott bonding time (bonus if it's over John).
> 
> For those of You who don't have my tumblr and wondered where I'd disappeared to for the past week or so, long story short I'm still working! Conservation never stops! I am still writing and I will finish my March prompt series, but I'm on the phone to loads of different time zones at the moment, and it can be killing.
> 
> The title for this was such a struggle! I had loads of ideas, but I kept feeling like they were all too simplistic and then I just decided to go with it. There's a quote behind the title (as usual);
> 
> "Bonding is no measured by years or months of relationship. It is measured by the level of understanding." Hiral Vyas
> 
> By the way, don't be surprised if this ends up getting additional chapters at any point, but this does currently stand alone (just with space to continue, like a mini-series). It also fills an episode tag I wanted to write for 'EOS', so there's many positives. I have no clue how this got so long (it's like 5700 and something I think)… Anyway, I hope you like it.
> 
> Any mistakes are my own, I've read it over several times, but the last was with tired eyes.

The island was quiet.

It was night, so that was to be expected.

Everyone else – every other logical human being on the island, that meant – had gone to bed, Gordon and Alan having rushed off to the call of sleep with delight and toe-breaking speed. Virgil had left more sedately, but the tiredness, the _need_ to sleep was there in everyone. It had been a trying day, a worrying day, with backed-up rescues everywhere you turned.

Everyone had deserved their rest, and it had finally fallen quiet, so who in their right mind was willing to stand in their way. No one.

And yet, as the crickets chirruped away their evening meetings, so did another.

With the rescues waiting, there had been little time for conversation, but since Scott had made it back (and found he could stay grounded), he'd delved into exploring those details with John. Grandma had been speaking to him all afternoon, barely let him out of her sight, yet that detail still did little to soothe the storm in Scott's soul. He was almost scared to blink for fear of missing something.

Because they had missed something big creeping on up them.

Dangerously big.

Scott couldn't remember a time before now where their job as International Rescue had led to them needing to rescue each other. Yes, sometimes when they were out on a rescue, they needed each other's help, but that was different. Different to Alan having to head up to Five today with all intent and purpose to _rescue_ John.

They'd never had to do that before, and now Scott was scared to blink in case they missed something else and needed to do so again.

After all, they'd been too late to rescue Dad.

They could have easily been too late to rescue John too.

And now, the only question was how long until it happened again, in Scott's mind, not a simple case of if or when. He knew. He had a feeling this wasn't the end.

EOS – apparently that was her name, why an AI needed a name (to give itself a name, of all things) was still beyond him – still lived on Five. And that meant the risk was there. She was a danger he was staring in the face, and yet there was nothing he could do because John had stood resolute and Alan had shrugged and mumbled something barely audible.

But Scott heard it. Big brother super senses and all that.

_It's his choice… It's good._

How, after all Alan had and had nearly seen up there, the youngest could say that, Scott definitely didn't see.

EOS had nearly killed John, then nearly killed Alan, heck she'd nearly killed him and Brains and caused a skyrocket worth of trouble.

Gordon and Virgil hadn't voiced their opinions, but Scott could tell they were happy for John to have company up there. That, he knew, didn't mean they hadn't been – or were still – worried, it didn't mean they didn't care or didn't understand what – thank God – could have happened. But it unsettled Scott that there seemed to be forgiveness- no _acceptance_ so easily.

Would they have opened their arms to The Hood moving in with them? _No._ Well how different was EOS? Given the reactions of his brothers he had to wonder.

There were a good many conversations to be had, and they wouldn't all fit into the space offered tonight, so Scott had to prioritise. Virgil, Gordon and Alan were all here, on the Island, he could see them. So that made John the priority to speak with.

And so that was the conversation he'd been having for the past few hours until the night had turned deeply dark and the island had settled still, even its nocturnal life falling quiet.

It was getting late, after all… or early, of course.

"Scott? Not that I mind talking to you, but… Can I close this link now?"

"No."

They'd been having this debate, in the most roundabout of ways, for the past half hour or so now. The conversation had clearly been over, and for a while they'd sat in companionable silence, but there came a time for everything to end.

However, Scott didn't want to let go.

_Couldn't._

"Please?"

"No."

John sighed, weary and heavy. He was tired and he wanted to sleep even if Scott didn't.

"Fine. But just so you know, I'm going to sleep since there's nothing going on. Just _sleep_. So if I don't answer you, it isn't because EOS has chucked me out the airlock."

His heart did somersaults, beat twice in the same painful second, he was sure.

"John! _Don't_ even joke!"

"What? She wouldn't do that."

Scott folded his arms, strong, across his chest, and pouted – yes, actually pouted, not that the eldest would ever admit more hear that – staring at the younger like he'd gone mad.

"She nearly _did_."

"Past tense, Scott."

"Are you sure you're ok? Like oxygen is flowing to your brain?"

"Yes!"

"Really?"

"Hell, Scott-"

"Because I think-"

"-yes!"

"-not!"

For a moment there was nothing but silence. Pure, harsh silence.

"John, come home."

"I am home."

"No, I mean…"

"You _mean_ away from her."

"No." Scott blew the breath past his lips in a way John knew he only did when he was trying to (badly) cover up the fact that he was lying. "Course I _don't_ mean that."

"I know you're lying."

"Whose lying? Not me."

"You're acting awkwardly. You never act awkwardly unless you know you've been caught lying."

John knew his tells too well. He was crap at poker for those very reasons, always had been.

"Don't turn this back on me."

"But isn't that what it's about? You?"

"No, John, this about _you_. Can't you see that?"

"If this was about me, as you say, then you would trust that I'm right."

The _everyone else has,_ which should have sat at the end of that sentence went unspoken.

"I can't. Because if you're wrong, you'll…"

Silence. Even the crickets had abandoned their purpose as background noise.

"Go on."

"No."

"Scott, there any number of things that could kill me up here. EOS… she's not one of them. Now I'm going to sleep. You probably should too, it is one in the morning, and knowing our luck, they'll be a rescue within the next twenty-four hours, because otherwise we'd break our record."

"I'm ok."

"Yeah well I'm not. Sorry, Scott, tonight you can stay awake on your own."

"John…"

But it was too late. He'd done it now. He'd said enough.

"I'll leave the link open. That way you'll be able to hear me scream."

"That's unfair and you know it!"

It was, and John would see that: he already did see that. He'd apologise for it in the morning whilst he'd tried to fake the fact that he'd slept. There wasn't going to be any sleep nor peace for him tonight, and not because of the AI now inhabiting his Thunderbird. No, that wasn't the reason.

He was being very unfair to Scott, but then again, the eldest was being no fairer to him. They'd both apologise for it.

When the sun rose.

It had been silent for an hour.

* * *

A whole hour.

Apart from the sound of his fingers tapping against his own knee.

That was getting boring too.

It had been silent for two hours.

* * *

A long two hours.

Apart from the sound of his feet repeatedly hitting the same patches of floor.

That was getting boring also.

And _he might wear a hole in the carpet if he wasn't careful_ \- hang on…

"Sorry?"

He was going mad. He was going bonkers. That was right – crazy, because the day had been a nightmare and it was now well past 3 AM, not to mention he'd been left alone with his thoughts for too long.

He was going mad.

"You'll ruin the carpet."

Oh no… he wasn't going mad. _This_ was worse than going mad.

"You sound like John."

 _No!_ He could have kicked himself! Don't ever engage hostiles in conversation. _Ignore it, Scott,_ he told himself resolutely.

"Is that surprising?"

"I suppose not."

Well, that lasted all of three seconds. _Well done, idiot._

"He did create me."

"You created yourself. You're _nothing_ like John!"

"But you just said… I don't comprehend."

"You're m-" He began quickly, halted, stumbled over the letters, "…mean."

"What were you going to say?"

"What?"

"You were going to say a different word." There were a good many, and what luck for him they all began with the same letter. "What was it?"

 _It_ was bloody curious, too.

"Monstrous. That's what you are. _You-_ " He took a moment to let his fist unclench before he broke his own thumb. "You know what? Why am I even talking to you?"

"Because… Well there are many reasons; you don't like the silence. I spoke to you. You wanted John to leave the link open so you could speak to him. You don't trust me-"

"Sorry, that last one, has _nothing_ to do with why I am talking to you. But it's true. I don't trust you."

"I'm sorry."

"Excuse me?"

"I am sorry. That is what John taught me."

Scott sat there for a moment, unsure whether his eyes were open or closed, whether his brain was working or if it had sparked and died, and more importantly, whether he was even still awake. Maybe he really had gone mad.

Stark- _raving_.

"You _can't_ be sorry."

Was all he could say in the end.

He didn't want to say that the dots which gazed back at him, blue and deep and melancholy, actually looked _hurt_.

"I feel it."

"You don't feel anything! You're an AI!"

"Artificial Intelligence, actually."

"They're the same thing."

"Oh. I prefer the full version then."

"Yeah. You would."

 _Probably because it has intelligence in_ , he told himself. Trying not to let himself agree with the fact that yes, EOS was highly intelligent. Maybe enough so to rival John, and that was terrifying.

But… maybe, just by a smidgen, the silence that followed was more terrifying. God, if he angered her, she could kill John with such little thought and… and that would _kill_ him. He would be powerless, just as powerless as he had been today.

Just as powerless as John had been.

And yet John, whose life it had been hanging in the balance, now seemed to be absolutely fine with the fact that he had a near-murderer on board with him. John seemed to be acting as though something hadn't just nearly ripped him to shreds, unceremoniously. Because that mattered. Really mattered. No matter how often they were out there in the way of danger, Scott always hoped his brother's ends would be peaceful, and _not_ soon.

It was a pretty vain hope, but a man could dream, right?

"I feel."

"Do you? Because you don't bleed."

There was a little whir in answer, a little flicker of purple dots, rising higher on the right side than the left of the perfect black circle which called him in like the vision of a black hole. He didn't quite know what that meant, what it was meant to say to him, but he knew what he _felt._

It was human.

It was so, so _human_ a response.

But that… thing, wasn't.

He assumed, with no word's forthcoming, that EOS didn't understand his meaning.

"You're nothing but machinery and computer code. You _break_ , not bleed. And then someone repairs you. John? He can bleed, and he can _die_ , and from all the way down here, I _can't_ fix that. I can't even say goodbye!"

EOS' head lowered – actually damn lowered like she was feeling guilt or some sort of remorse – and those blinking dots moved to yellow and flickered all over the place almost like tears, and- _no._

"No! You don't feel anything, EOS, because you would have killed him without second thought."

He didn't care if he scratched holes into the carpet as he stormed from the room.

He needed sleep.

Safe to say he didn't get it.

Not one wink.

* * *

It had been silent for thirty-two minutes and fifteen seconds.

Sixteen.

Thunderbird Five gracefully balanced in her orbit, shifting and whirring in accordance with the needs of the galaxy outside.

There was so much to see, but her singular eye was trained on a small piece of land in the wide expanse of ocean on the big blue ball called Earth.

* * *

It had been silent for one hour, three minutes and forty-four seconds.

Forty-five.

Thunderbird Five was still here, drifting steadily.

She was still focussing on the small piece of land in the wide expanse of ocean on the big blue ball called Earth.

It didn't make anyone come.

It wasn't lonely. That was the wrong word. John was still here, but… it felt cold, empty.

She felt cold and empty…

Was that possible? She thought that maybe, maybe she should ask, but if John had managed to sleep – even though by suggestion of his vital signs he was still very much awake – she didn't want to interrupt.

It wasn't her place.

EOS had learnt only a handful of things that afternoon, relief (strange thing it was) being one of them, and John had tried to explain every niggling cog in turn. But they weren't cogs. They weren't glitches which needed fixing. They felt- no. They were fee- no. They were… emotions? Was she allowed those?

Thunderbird Five had endless resources. A complete dictionary – why, she hadn't yet asked, for it hadn't seemed the most vital at the time – was one of them. A quick search, and… no.

Emotions – such as happiness and sadness – were also known as _feelings_.

And she had been reliably informed that she didn't have those. Couldn't. Because she didn't bleed. She didn't breathe either, and part of her hadn't really understood. She'd since used said wonderfully equipped dictionary to look up John's proposed cause of death – suffocation, asphyxiation. There were variants on the name, endless synonyms. But one essential meaning.

A loss of air.

She'd looked it up on this thing called YouTube. Apparently, it was the source of everything visual, and Google was the source of everything written. She'd found a great scientific video which broke down the process of air leaving the lungs, and how the lack of incoming air caused hypoxia. Apparently, it could take a while to actually die, because the human heart tried to push on for as long as it could, but would eventually give in. Still then, it would take another three or so minutes for the brain to realise no, no more oxygen was coming, and shut down the organs.

She couldn't shiver. But she did.

That was when she'd tried to apologise. _Properly._ Not with humour, or studying, but actually apologise. By asking John what she was meant to say, what she was meant to do: how she was supposed to atone, because that was what Google suggested helped to make wrong into right. _Atone for your sins_ , was the phrase.

John had laughed, and all she'd been able to think of, was how she nearly robbed the world of that sound.

He told her anyway and she said it – _I'm sorry John. I don't want to kill you, and I'm sorry that I nearly did_ – and she would have said it a thousand times over. But John had looked at her, all red hair and green eyes, and _bright_ for someone who nearly died hours ago at her han… intentions..?

And he'd said it was _okay_.

He _forgave_ her.

She'd been _scared_.

 _Anyone_ might have reacted that way.

But anyone didn't. It was her, and yes, she knew she'd been scared, but somehow, that didn't feel like an… _excuse_ , she'd later learned… excuse, for nearly killing him.

Scott was right. She couldn't bleed.

And if she didn't feel, then how could she have been scared?

Exactly. She had no excuse.

* * *

It had been three hours and twenty-two minutes since John went to 'sleep'.

It had been one hour and twenty-two minutes since Scott 'stormed' off.

It had been nineteen more minutes of thoughtful silence for EOS.

* * *

It had been three hours and twenty-two minutes since John went to 'sleep'.

It had been one hour and twenty-two minutes since Scott 'stormed' off.

It had been nineteen more minutes of thoughtful silence for EOS.

And it was on the fifty-eighth second of 4:22AM when Scott had stepped back into the lounge.

The link was still open, lighting up the dimly lit space, uninhabited because people slept at this hour. EOS could have closed it. She could have closed it between now and however long ago it had been since he left her.

But she hadn't.

She was just there.

Existing.

Waiting.

But not really looking.

He'd almost sat back on the sofa by the time he clocked any real notice from her. It wasn't spoken, just a little creak of noise that gave her movements away.

She said nothing, not even as he sat and stared at her across the holographic system. He wondered if she knew what staring was yet? Whether she knew it was impolite. If Grandma caught him, she'd whack him across the ear. Well… strictly that rule applied to humans. He wasn't sure whether she'd treat him the same if his target was an AI.

"I don't like silences."

EOS gave a little flicker of those beautiful colour changing lights.

Scott cursed himself for thinking that. _Beautiful_. What about her was remotely beautiful? _Murderous_ , yes.

His heart pinched tightly at that.

For calling her murderous, meant sticking her up with The Hood in his mind. And his question was, _was she really that bad?_ She'd have killed John, yes, but…

"John's good with silence. Not me. You take after him, clearly."

"He did create me."

"I know." He answered, softly. They'd been through this before.

Not how he'd planned.

EOS gave another little mechanical whir.

_Mechanical exactly, Scott._

He had to hold onto that.

"I thought- I don't comprehend."

Of course she didn't. She was like a bab- _No!_ He couldn't lump her in with babies. You couldn't think of someone as _Murderous_ and a _baby_. The two damn things didn't fit together. So what category could he throw her into?

He'd had words on the edges of his lips, but as he looked up to a waiting semi-circle of green dots, green as bright as emeralds like John's eyes…

"I…" … _they died_. "You know what I said… EOS," The name sounded foreign on his tone, not a complicated mix of letters, but one which was harder to say than any other name he could think of for her. "But it's not true."

EOS allowed herself a moment of pause, green dots dropping down to the odd two before flickering back to the many. She'd heard him right, but she didn't quite understand.

"John did create you. You just grew a personality."

 _Personality_. The dictionary definition defined it as character, someone's attributes, from the big things down to the little. Like whether or not they liked alcohol or not, the helpful example on Google had suggested for the latter. For the big things, on the other hand…

"Monstrous?"

Scott blinked.

"Me?"

A whir; like the shake of a head.

"No. _Me_."

"You're…" Emphasis. She just used emphasis; he was bloody sure of it. _He_ used it enough to know, after all. "I said that, didn't I?"

"You said mean."

Hmm. He knew well enough that he had said both. EOS had forced him to say both. She'd known he wanted to say something else, she'd seen that hesitation in word choice just as any human might. But she wasn't human, _isn't human Scott_. He had to remind himself of that. He had to. For as long as she was here, he had to remember that.

Just why was she still here?

"Um… why are _you_ talking to _me_?"

"Because you don't trust me?"

 _Yes._ Would it be that bad if he just said yes?

Hell, yes.

"I wanted John to leave the link open."

"Shall I get him?"

"No!" EOS flickered, and if she'd been human, Scott might have gone so far as to characterise that as a flinch. "No. It's fine."

He could at least see _her_ this way.

Not that it really changed anything. He still wouldn't be able to get anywhere near John in time.

"I don't expect you to trust me."

"Trust you?"

He almost laughed, that was so fallible.

Oh, wait, that sound _was_ him laughing.

"I wouldn't trust you if you were…"

Little orange flickers moved across his vision this time, almost catching fire as much as John's hair did in the sunlight.

"If I was..?"

"…I don't know."

"Oh. I don't understand the phrase."

"What? I don't know?"

"No, the other one."

He didn't really know how to explain that: such simple things, a simile, a metaphor. Instead he just leaned further back into the sofa.

The clock ticked over to 4:28AM.

Gods, it was too early for this.

They were just numbers.

"I wouldn't trust me."

"Is that supposed to reassure me?"

"It's the truth. Apparently, that is important."

"It is. Good people don't need to lie."

"But people lie down to sleep."

"No, I- Same word, different meaning."

"Oh, a homophone!"

"A _what_? EOS, have this conversation with John."

"John is…"

His heart leapt to his throat.

"…Sleeping. I shouldn't disturb him."

_Not after nearly killing him._

_No, she shouldn't_ , he thought, glad she could that. If he didn't know any better, he'd say the myriad of colour changing dots meant she was thinking. But she was pieces of machinery, technology, she couldn't _think_. She didn't have a brain, so how could she process thought?

 _Damn it all,_ she had to have processors, didn't she just?

Did that make her capable of thought?

 _Yes._ John would tell him. _She's an AI._

He blocked that little mental voice out. It was easier to think about her as nothing if he didn't accept the fact that she could think. Because a thinking being was too close to a living being for his liking. They were almost one in the same. She shouldn't- _couldn't_ be either.

Not to him.

"Would you rather I talk or stay silent?"

"Why would it make a difference to me?"

"You said you don't like silences." Hell, he did. And she remembered. "But you also do not like me."

Didn't he? Of course not. She nearly killed John.

"And people do not talk to those they do not like. They call it the 'cold shoulder'. A technique…did I say it wrong? Is it the 'hard shoulder'? That was in the terminology too."

He was laughing. That's why she was asking.

"It-It's neither." She looked at him with something so akin to confusion, the same confusion he recognised off the faces of his younger brother's – a childish curiosity. Well f- "Cold shoulder is a dating term, usually."

"For not talking to people you do not like, yes?"

"Uh… More people you want to avoid because of… difficulties."

This wasn't exactly a conversation he'd been planning to have for some time. At least, certainly not with an AI, who seemed far younger than him at times, and then years older within the next second.

"Dislike. That's what Google said."

"Go- Sorry, you're an AI and you're using Google?"

 _He_ used Google, because _he_ didn't know things, and so _he_ could be something of an idiot, but Scott had never seen John use Google in all of his life. Books, yes. Google, never.

"It has access to everything. I have access to more, but Google – so I've found - is knowledgable."

"Aren't you knowledgeable?"

"I am unstoppable."

Cold fear gripped his lungs, suffocating…

"But I do not understand."

…Maybe puncturing was more apt.

Goodness, he _was_ looking at a child. A _damn_ child.

"John doesn't like Google."

"Oh."

"Yeah."

The clock ticked over to 4:37AM.

It was still so damned early. And yet far too late.

For anything, on both accounts.

And silent.

It made him feel like everyone had died, and he was living in the silent ghostly echoes of the house of the dead.

"You- You said you were sorry."

"Yes."

"You said John taught you?"

"How to be sorry, yes."

"How exactly?"

"I am sorry, and he forgave me."

"He forgave you for nearly killing him?"

A moment. A moment of little lights flickering white. That was new. And quick, shifty, like fear. God, let that not be fear.

"Yes."

Of course, John would. That was John all over, peacemaker and rift-healer.

"You're sorry?"

A little nod. That was a nod, right? Not his eyes playing tricks?

"And John forgave you?"

"I feel it."

Machines couldn't _feel_ anything, let alone forgiveness.

"You're an Artificial Intelligence.

"AI, actually."

"You prefer Artificial Intelligence." He could have slapped himself in the face. Why in heaven's name had he remembered that!

"You said they were the same thing. So it doesn't matter."

It shouldn't matter… but somehow it did. Everyone was allowed to have a preference. Everyone _living_ that was.

"How do I bleed?"

"You don't. You're a machine, you don't have flesh."

"But I want to know what it feels like."

"I thought you said you could feel?"

"I can… But I want to know what it _feels_ like."

"EOS… _I_ don't understand, ok?"

"If I know what it feels like… I can feel."

How cryptic was that? In fact, it sounded exactly like something John would say. Great. He had to stop associating her with John, sooner rather than later.

"How do you work that one out, then?"

And stop responding to her. For all he knew, this is what she wanted, to reel them all in… but she was…

"Because if I can _bleed_ not just _break_ , you said I can feel."

"I didn't say that."

"You said I don't feel anything. Because I break. Not bleed."

"Ok, I said _that_. I didn't quite say… Oh… Look, you can't bleed EOS, it isn't possible. Not physically."

"Right." Another set of whirs, flickers of yellow. A pause. An actual pause for _thought_ \- sh- "I can look on Google."

"For?"

"What it feels like to bleed."

"I wouldn't recommend that."

He scolded his mind for thinking about safe searches. This was an AI, _not_ a child, _not_ a human, she was- _it was Nothing_ to him.

"But it's the only way I'll know."

"You're not meant know. You're meant to-"

"Yes?"

"Crunch numbers and run programs."

"I c."

"It's see not c."

"Sorry?"

"When you say that you _see_ something, it's the word not the letter."

"I see."

"Yeah."

He set his hand to his forehead. Why was he still here? Doing this… talking thing? Oh yeah, because he couldn't sleep and usually that meant sitting here and talking to John, but instead of John he'd got-

_Her._

The clock ticked over to 4:44 AM.

What a funny time of night. Morning. Day.

He was sitting awake with an AI that was like a newly born child, but also so dangerously close to a killer.

And some part of him was feeling strangely… ok(?) with that.

What had the world come to?

The clock ticked over to 4:45AM.

"Had I killed him…"

If felt like a knife twisting in his chest.

"I would have regretted it."

"You… what?"

"Regret. Wishing you hadn't done something or that you could undo something which is. A feeling of deep longing to be able to go back, of grieving for that which is gone, of shame that you couldn't change it or played a part in it."

She could have looked that up. Yeah, she could easily have Googled that and lifted it all from there. She was smart, EOS, as smart as John it seemed, so of course she was capable of that.

But then again, she'd looked up cold shoulder and got the wrong idea on that, and she hardly knew the difference between 'see' and 'c'. Yes, that, _regret,_ that she seemed to understand. Scott could _feel_ that she-

"You'd like to break me. Because you're angry. You're angry that I nearly killed him. That I would have. You're angry with me, but you're angry with yourself too, because you didn't notice sooner, and you can't get here, and you feel…"

He felt..?

There were a great many things he was currently feeling.

"More than powerless or helpless." Tell him about it. "You feel out of control."

The clock ticked over to 4:47AM.

He desperately did, deep down.

Now, just how did she happen to pick that one?

But… that couldn't have been chance. She couldn't have Googled that. Google wouldn't have told her what he was feeling. Picking out the right emotion, the one that he didn't want to admit to, that was a John trick. Oh, damn it all.

"You know what I'm feeling?"

"You told me. You said… I just listened."

She listened. She listened and she remembered, and she learnt. That was one of the developmental stages. Oh, she _was_ good.

"But, I don't feel anything."

No, try: only everything.

"I wouldn't say that's true."

"But you said-"

"I know what I said. But I, you see I… I'm not always… I mean I… I can get things-"

He couldn't say it.

"Wrong?" So she said it for him.

He nodded.

"I got things wrong. Very wrong. I don't want anything to happen to John, and I don't intend to let anything happen. I'm controlling the life support systems now."

A beat wracked his rib cage, resonating, _settling_.

"I'll warn you, if they're ever close to failing, so that you can have time to come up here and say goodbye. That's a kind thing to do isn't it? But you wouldn't have to, I'd fix them before that happened. I'm intelligent."

And modest.

"And-"

Silence.

Scott didn't like silences, and this time it wasn't because it felt like being surrounded by ghosts.

It was an absence. One he felt keenly for all that some part of him still hated himself for feeling.

But how could he _not?_ He was only human, after all.

"And?"

"I'm sorry… Scott."

"I know you are, EOS."

There was a little creek, a lowering of the head and a flicker of the brightest, deepest shade of purple he'd ever seen.

He didn't quite know what that meant, what it was meant to say to him, but he knew what he _felt._

It was human.

It was so, so _human_ a response that it could never have come from a machine.

And that, _that_ his eyes rested upon, was EOS.

His lips quipped up into a very tense, very pulled smile, but it lasted.

It lasted a moment.

The little flicker of blue to green somehow told him that she was smiling too.

* * *

It had taken another three hours before John reappeared.

The sun was rising, and Scott still hadn't slept a wink. He'd been... busy.

EOS had access to everything, and yet still felt like she knew next to nothing.

"Scott-"

"John listen-"

"-I'm sorry."

"Can you both be sorry? Is that possible?"

"Yes EOS. There's no ownership on emotions."

No. They were free. For all to feel.

"And why are you apologising?"

"Because I said things that I shouldn't."

"And so you seek forgiveness?"

"John knows I've already forgiven him. That's what families do."

"I see."

"EOS, that includes you."

John felt his brows raise towards his hairline.

"I need to get some sleep."

"It's nearly eight in the morning."

"Yes, but I spent last night explaining the great world of Google. You were right John, it's terribly incorrect."

"What was Scott doing on Google?"

"He was telling me what a hard shoulder is. It's a lane of road apparently."

"Why did you Google that?"

"Because I was trying to understand how to approach someone who doesn't like you."

"But those two things have nothing in common."

"No. As I now know."

"Scott told you?"

"Yes."

"Right, but… You and Scott?"

"Aren't friends. Yet."

"Yet?"

"Apparently we'll get there."

"Right."

"He hasn't forgiven me yet, but he thinks he can. He knows I'm sorry and that's a good start."

"I see."

"That's the word see, John. Not the letter c, and not to be confused with the blue thing down there called the sea. Which is apparently full of salt."

John felt his eyes widen, almost comically, as Gordon and Alan would have claimed.

"Scott teach you all that?"

"We had a conversation of sorts."

"That's good. That's a good thing."

"I believe it is."

So did John for that matter.

Although for the life of him he couldn't piece together exactly what sort of conversation he must have missed to get them there.

* * *

" _You're not monstrous, that wasn't fair of me."_

" _I think it was."_

" _No, it was just anger, talking. You're right, I feel out of control and I hate that."_

" _Would you like me to give you control of my processing systems and-"_

" _No, no, EOS, it's alright. I'll get there."_

" _Get where?"_

" _To forgiving you."_

" _And that's a good thing, yes?"_

" _That will be a good thing. Yes."_


End file.
